Peabody Inn, Salem, MA Built 1874
A macabre history lesson:
A casket is too wide to carry through a regular-size door, so colonial houses had a small door installed right beside the front door for just such occasions. A persons casket would be brought through both doors and into a room for their wake.
Lead poisoning (often from their pewter dishes) could put a person in a coma like condition that was often mistaken as death. People really were buried alive and would awaken to find themselves entombed. The interior lids of exhumed caskets would have scratches on them.To end this horrible mistake, a body was brought home for a period of time to make sure the person would not aWAKEn.
Once relatives and friends were convinced that the deceased was really gone, the front doors would both be opened and the casket (with contents) would be taken to the church for the funeral and then to it’s final resting place. The room where the wake had taken place was returned to its original designation as the “living room.”
If I get some of these details wrong, hey, I was on vacation and I got all of this info from taking a ghost tour, not a college professor! Armed with this new information, I noticed the small door (looks like part of the door frame) as we entered the Peabody house. It doesn’t appear that the room we slept in was always the “sleeping room.”
See our Salem, MA Peabody House Photo!
A Peabody House ghost story:
The door to our room was unlatched and open when we returned in the evening from our Salem Witch Tour. As usual, Sage (the wife) gets blamed, but it wasn’t me (this time)! I immediately get on the phone with the front desk. Meanwhile, Acidus moves the sofa back to it’s original place against the wall and retrieves the crumpled sofa rug from the middle of the kitchen floor. Well, I found out that housekeeping had gone home before we had even checked in that afternoon. But, since the laptop and cash were untouched on the coffee table, our vacation was still on track.
But, it was getting late; time to prep for bed. There I was in the bathroom, travel size toothpaste in hand, when I realized that every hair on my body (including ones I never even knew I had) was standing on end. I held out my arms to look at the goosebumps as I walked out the door to show Acidus. Halfway through the kitchen (where the sofa rug had “landed”), I was still looking at my arms in disbelief when I felt myself walking out an invisible door and the goosebumps were gone. I continued straight ahead into the room (with the sofa) to tell Acidus, “Bring your camera.” I really didn’t expect that sensation to happen again; but it did. It was like walking through a door of static electricity. The phenomena lasted quite a long time. Acidus was able to snap quite a few photos. And there you have it, just an indescribable feeling you would simply have to experience in order to make you a believer.
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Posted - 05/23/2001 : 01:56:11 AM
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